Report spells out FBI's missed opportunities before Sept. 11

WASHINGTON (AP) In the weeks and months before Sept. 11, 2001,
the FBI had some clues, but didn't see them. It had a lead from one
of its own agents, but didn't follow it.

A sobering inside look at pre-Sept. 11 intelligence operations
by the Justice Department's inspector general chronicles in some
instances in hour-to-hour detail how the FBI missed at least five
opportunities to uncover vital information that might have led
agents to the hijackers.

''The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant
failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and
prevent the Sept. 11 attacks,'' Inspector General Glenn Fine said
in a newly released report Thursday.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged Friday that there
were laws on the books before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that
''discouraged the sharing of information'' among law enforcement
and intelligence agencies.

Appearing on NBC's ''Today'' show, Gonzales noted that many of
those laws ''have now been dismantled'' and said he thinks the
government is in a better position than before to avert such
attacks. ''You have the ability to connect the dots'' of terrorist
plots, Gonzales said.

An FBI agent suggested to the chain of command two months before
the attacks that there was a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden
to send students to the United States to study ways to take down
U.S. aircraft.

Failure to fully heed the agent's theory was indicative of an
agency that failed to accord strategic analysis the attention it
deserved, the report said.

Even when the bureau had hard information shortly before the
attacks about the presence in the United States of eventual
hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, ''the FBI's
investigation then was conducted without much urgency or
priority,'' the report concluded.

The investigation of Mihdhar ''was given to a single
inexperienced agent,'' the report said.

Responding to the IG's criticism, the FBI said it has since
taken substantial steps to deal with the issues the report raised.

Today, ''no terrorism lead goes unaddressed,'' and new policies
are in place to share information among intelligence agencies, the
FBI said.

The IG's review, a year old, is only now being released because
of a court fight with lawyers for imprisoned terrorist conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui over how much of it should be disclosed. The
portions on Moussaoui were deleted.

According to the report, CIA employees and four FBI agents
assigned to the CIA's bin Laden unit on Jan. 5, 2000, accessed
incoming cables containing a substantial amount of information
about Mihdhar, including that he was traveling and that he had a
U.S. visa. Those facts weren't disseminated to the FBI.

The information was written up that day by one of the FBI agents
assigned to the CIA's bin Laden unit. The FBI agent sought, but was
never able to get, the required go-ahead from the CIA's deputy
chief of the unit to send the draft to the FBI. Ten days later,
Mihdhar and Hazmi were in Los Angeles.

All of the CIA and FBI personnel who were involved in the matter
now say they remember nothing about the document that wasn't sent.
The document is called a Central Intelligence Report, or CIR.

''When we interviewed all of the individuals involved with the
CIR, they asserted that they recalled nothing about it,'' the
report stated.

Mihdhar came under CIA scrutiny because the National Security
Agency had picked up communications that al-Qaida operatives were
planning travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Mihdhar showed up at
the meetings.

Once in the United States, Mihdhar and Hazmi lived openly in San
Diego and ''should have drawn some scrutiny from the FBI,'' the
report said.

The head of the San Diego FBI office responded that the report
greatly exaggerates the possibility that local agents could have
prevented the attacks.

The two Saudis rented a room in the home of a longtime FBI
terrorism informant, and also befriended a fellow Saudi who had
drawn FBI scrutiny in the past.

The informant identified the two men to his FBI handler only by
their first names, and the report criticizes the FBI handler as
''not particularly thorough or aggressive'' in following up.

The two men also befriended Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had
established himself in the area. The FBI briefly investigated him
in 1998 when the manager of his apartment complex reported that
al-Bayoumi had received a suspicious package, had strange wires in
his bathroom and hosted frequent weekend gatherings of Middle
Eastern men.

Associated Press writer Seth Hettena in San Diego contributed to
this report.